


A New Face

by Acacophony



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Akuze, Black Shepard, Gen, Mass Effect 2, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-03 19:52:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5304656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acacophony/pseuds/Acacophony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard has her first moment alone after waking up from the Lazarus project. Is she really who she sees in the mirror? Short fic full of general wondering, identity crisis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Face

Tess stepped up the mirror in her small bathroom. She… couldn’t believe she had a private washroom, actually. But there was a lot that she couldn’t believe about what had happened.

She looked into the mirror and leaned in close. The glow of cybernetics peaked through the cracks in her skin, and she ran her fingers over them in horror. It looked the Illusive Man had gotten his super soldier after all.

Her mind wandered back to Akuze, to Toombs, to Kahoku and his men. All of that torture, death and suffering. All to make her. She grit her teeth as tears began to fill her eyes from horror and frustration. Here, all alone, she could let herself break down. The scar across her nose was almost gone, visible only if she leaned far in and hunted for it. It disturbed her. She wasn’t the same Shepard that had been on Akuze. She was only a ghost of that person, and her faded scar served to remind her of who she wasn’t, rather than affirm who she was.

Shepard stepped back from the mirror and took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of herself. She had to bring down the collectors, to protect those colonists. That had to be her focus, a distraction from what she had become. She started to peel off her civilian clothing as she thought about it. She needed to look at herself, and find out just what else they had changed. 

Clothes came off in pieces, slowly. She was afraid of what lay underneath. Afraid of what she’d see. She paused after stepping out of her pants. Her underwear was all that was left, but already she could see those cracks on her face extended to the rest of her body. And she had no scars. A wave of nausea rolled over her as she ran her finger tips over the broken skin of her stomach. It didn’t even feel the same as it used to. It was all so different.

And her tattoos! The same as her scars, they were gone. Not just faded, either. None of them were left. She supposed that she had probably had to regrow most of her skin, but she felt tears starting to run down her face as her hands traced where each one used to be. She ripped open the drawer set down into the cabinet, rummaging around to see what there was. Some basic toiletries, and a small hand mirror. Turning her back to the larger one, she angled the cosmetic mirror to look at her back. She knew she wouldn’t find anything, but when her eyes fell on the dark, empty skin on the back of her right shoulder, where the red X had once marked her as a member of the Reds, she couldn’t hold in her rage and angst any more. She let out a loud scream, and threw the cosmetic mirror against the opposite wall, shattering it.

She turned quickly back to face the large mirror, though she didn’t look at her reflection as she began to sob rather hard. The face in that mirror that looked like herself, and yet looked like a stranger. She ripped her hair down out of the bun, breaking some of the ends carelessly. It had been pulled back for months while she was on that table, and it was in need of a good rinse and conditioning, but she would handle that in a moment. She put the ties around her wrist for safe keeping as she began to rummage through the drawer again. “A pick,” She mumbled to herself through gritted teeth. She found a long hair comb, but not the kind she was after. Tess let out a howl of frustration, feeling a rush of more intense anger. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault. Hardly anyone saw her with her hair let out as it was supposed to be, and they couldn’t have known. She would have to request one from requisitions. Slamming the comb down on the counter, she mustered the courage to look back at her reflection. She used her fingers to fluff and shape her hair as best she could, letting it stick up as it naturally liked to do.

She looked a little like she used to back on Earth, now, before she joined up with the Alliance. But she wasn’t that little girl anymore. Her face was contorted with rage and horror, and her body was trembling. She was older, too, a stranger to herself. She wouldn’t ever be that person again. That person was dead. She was just a copy. Even though she’d seen the files, she still didn’t really believe that she wasn’t a clone, or worse, an AI programmed to think that she was Shepard. That idea was the worst to her. How much of her body was really her own? What about her brain?

Tess let out a smaller vocal sob, her rage bubbling away into just bitter tears as she turned away from the mirror and finished stripping her clothing off of herself. She couldn’t look at her reflection anymore. She had the same face but she felt like an impostor in her own skin. She tossed the clothes aside and moved to turn the tap of the shower on. A good long shower was what she needed. She stepped into the hot water, glad that she had a real shower in her room, and she leaned against the cold wall, her eyes stubbornly closed as she felt the stinging sensation against her skin from the difference in temperature. Maybe, when she opened them again this would all be gone. Maybe this was all a bad dream.


End file.
